The Care Workers’ Charity Responds to the Skills for Care SC-WRES Report 2025: Racial Inequities Must Be Treated as a Workforce Crisis, Not a Side Conversation
The Care Workers’ Charity (The CWC) welcomes the publication of the Social Care Workforce Race Equality Standard (SC-WRES) Annual Report 2025/26 by Skills for Care. Whilst we are disappointed, we are not surprised by what this report contains.
The report draws on data from 99 local authorities, covering around 70% of the adult local authority social care workforce in England. It tells us what many care workers already know: that racial inequity is not an accident of circumstance in this sector, it is built into it. Care workers of Black, Asian or minority ethnicities are 44% less likely to be appointed from shortlist, 50% more likely to enter the formal disciplinary process, 37% less likely to reach senior management, and 15% more likely to leave their organisation.
At The Care Workers’ Charity, we do not need a report to tell us this is happening, we hear it every day. Our own 2025 Care Worker Wellbeing Survey, drawing on over 2,000 care workers, found that 33.42% had experienced or witnessed bullying, harassment or verbal abuse at work, and 24.6% had experienced or witnessed physical violence. Read alongside SC-WRES, which shows Global Majority care workers reporting harassment and bullying from colleagues at a rate 66% higher than their White counterparts in adult social care, it is clear that a workforce already under significant pressure is not under equal pressure. The burden is falling hardest on those who can least afford to carry it.
This cannot be separated from the wider context. Since 2021, 80% of the workforce growth in adult social care has come from internationally recruited care workers. The sector has expanded on their commitment, their skill and their sacrifice. However, there are two major pieces of Government policy working directly against them. Members of our Care Worker Advisory Board and Champions Project have described sponsorship tied to a single employer as feeling, in their own words, like slavery: unable to speak up, unable to challenge and unable to progress for fear of losing their visa. The SC-WRES data and these experiences are not two separate issues. The Care Workers’ Charity remains committed to working alongside care workers and sector leaders to challenge racial inequity in adult social care.
Karolina Gerlich, CEO of The Care Workers’ Charity said:
“The SC-WRES report tells us where and how racism is shaping the working lives of care workers, and where leaders and Government have an immediate opportunity to act. At The Care Workers’ Charity, we hear from internationally recruited care workers who tell us that recognition, progression and safety at work are not equally available to them. We are not surprised by this data, but we are deeply disappointed. The Government cannot ask internationally recruited care workers to hold this sector together while simultaneously passing policy that separates them from their families, undermines their security, and ties them to employers who this report has shown are not always treating them fairly. Racial equity in adult social care must not be treated as an additional priority.”
The Care Workers’ Charity is calling for:
- Sustained, ring-fenced Government funding for the SC-WRES Improvement Programme, in line with its status as one of six recommendations in the Workforce Strategy for Adult Social Care in England.
- Action plans developed with the direct involvement of Global Majority care workers, including through structures such as The CWC’s Care Worker Advisory Board and Champions Project, so that response is co-produced rather than imposed.
- A clear extension pathway for SC-WRES principles into the independent sector, where the majority of the adult social care workforce is employed and where comparable national data does not yet exist.
- Employer commitments on safety, reporting and resolution of harassment, bullying and abuse, recognising that the workforce is exposed unevenly and that staff survey data tells the truest story.